Comments on: How to Meal Plan: Meal Planning Made Simple

By: Robyn

Robyn — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 03:48:05 +0000

I started meal planning a year ago, it took some time to make it a habit, but once I did, it simplified our lives so much. I too am very pregnant, so planning has kinda been set aside because of my aversions. HOWEVER, we have needed to streamline the process of grocery shopping and food prep even further and I found that I could apply a similar process on my computer and sync it up with our home assistant, who easily shops for us. Now I have all my fav. foods/brands stored on the computer, where I cut and paste weekly for lists… lickity split. Thanks for making an even clearer process out of this, I am sharing it! I am enjoying your recipes tremendously.

By: Sabrina M.

Sabrina M. — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:48:16 +0000

@Amy, I’m so excited for you that the blessed day is so near! Can’t even imagine how joyful and excited you must be to start this new chapter of your life; I know you will be a marvelous mother with all the passion and dedication you give to everything you do =)

Whole Foods will have some breaks on chicken breasts, fryers, salmon, ground turkey, etc. They do not necessarily have the expensive organic stamp on them but are sans hormones, free range, etc. I’ll stock up on fryers when they’re $1.79/lb, brown rice at $0.99/lb, and great bunches of collard or kale for 2/$3 and have roast chicken and/or soup for weeks.

Natural Grocer in Richardson tends to have very good sales on their organic-only produce. Only thing I do not like about them is their broccoli; they only sell the crowns, which is fine for eating straightaways but when I make broccoli soup I like having the stalks.

I’m OCD for numbers so I’ve spent a year tracking the big health stores’ prices on spreadsheets that I then print out and take shopping. That + coupons lets my three cats and I eat healthy at Whole Foods for about $35/ week. Done with school so now I’m just a working girl trying to live well on the cheap

By: Amy

Amy — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:00:12 +0000

@Sabrina M., Hi Sabrina! Great to hear from you! Are you still in school. I’m on hiatus for now…waiting for the little baby to get here.

I agree with you about sales tracking but I rarely do it. So much of what we eat doesn’t go on sale – organic meats, produce, grains. Sprouts does have their gluten-free jubilee 3 or 4 times a year where you get 25% off anything gfree. I stock up on supplies then.

Hugs,
Amy

By: Sabrina M.

Sabrina M. — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:51:50 +0000

Combining meal planning methods with grocery sales cycle tracking = even Bigger money savings as well. You can get an idea of when something you need will be going on sale and then plan meals based on that item accordingly. Especially with meat/ poultry and seasonal produce, the savings can be substantial and your per serving costs literally pennies.

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:38:39 +0000

@Ricki, I can't believe that you don't meal plan! How do you ever manage to come up with so many creative dishes without a plan. You must have a few tricks up your sleeve, my friend. xoxo!!